Mismanagement, Success and the X Factor

We occasionally come across incompetent individuals holding high postions in the corporate world, at times even presiding over profit making entities. And we gape in astonishment. Could this really be?

We all know that a good CEO is a thorough professional in possession of exceptional managerial skills.

But what about the other sort? How did he get to the top and how does he manage to stay there?

He is indecisive.

Even the simplest of decisions is delayed time and again. Numerous meetings are held on earthshaking (according to him) issues like buying new furniture or cars for the office, culminating in a conclusion to put off the purchase indefinitely.

He keeps reversing decisions taken.

The plan initially is to buy four cars during the current financial year; a week later, he decides to make it six; it is then pruned to three in a fortnight’s time; finally, the following month sees a deferment of the purchase to the next financial year.

Dates of meetings are changed time and again; travel plans are changed by the minute; launch of new projects are rescheduled over a dozen times.

He is insecure and will not delegate.

Even the choosing and buying of a doormat for the office is his prerogative. He arrogates virtually all vital information and decision making to himself.

He meddles in areas well beyond his expertise; he is in the grip of the Contribution Syndrome, which means he feels the need to keep stamping his mark of contribution in every area all the time.

In his opinion, he is a brilliant accountant, ace salesman, production expert, advertisement guru… all bundled into one.

He is a lavish spender… on himself.

He keeps upgrading his cars, electronic gizmos and so on, every few months – of course at the company’s expense. He flies from city to city, wines and dines at luxury hotels ostensibly to hold (pointless) meetings at the drop of a hat.

Do all these remind you of – The Nowhere Man sitting in his Nowhere Land, making all his Nowhere Plans for Nobody?

Wait – these is more and the sting is in the tail.

He is a despot and a sadist.

He forces his views on all his subordinates and has no compunctions in removing anyone he perceives as a potential threat to himself, regardless of the damage to the company. He enjoys publicly humiliating his subordinates, especially the more senior ones. He wants to be remembered as the CEO, after whose departure, the company went into a terminal decline. He therefore emasculates senior management to the extent possible.

Fanciful would you say? Such a manager cannot survive – that is what common sense would tell us. Yet, in over (close to) three decades of working life, I have seen more than one such individual, climb to the top and even more surprisingly be successful as far as the bottom line is concerned.

How does something like this happen? From what I have observed, there are two very important factors.

To get to the top, these individuals use their not inconsiderable skills of osculation on a certain portion of the anatomy of their bosses, situated towards the lower rear. To couch it in a slightly better fashion, they are adept at the art of managing their superiors appropriately.

Once at the top, they depend on a vital external factor, which can be called by many names but to keep it simple – can be termed as plain luck. While a good manager would certainly need a normal dose of fortune to be successful, incompetent ones need huge slices of luck to blunder their way to success. A good manager may be halted in his tracks by external factors like plunging prices in his sector, legislative impediments etc, while the incompetent may have the fortune of boom conditions during his tenure.

The bottom line is therefore –

Competence + No Luck = No Success

Competence + Some Luck = Success

Incompetence + Great Luck = Success